Goon Marauder Guide 1.1.5
Contents
Guide 1
Marauders get a ton of different junk from a ton of different classes. They have berserker's Bloodthirst but no 2h techniques, rogue's dual-wield/dirty combat but no Lethality, brawler's mobility but no punching, and arcane blade's weaponfocus/flurry without the spells. The only thing they do better than anyone else is whack people over the head. But really, they get a lot of tools so they play differently depending on which you want to focus on. They're good at getting in melee range fast, killing things fast, and getting out of trouble fast.
Build
Usually the big thing a marauder needs to decide early is defense vs armor. With access to Mobile Defense and Cunning/Tactical, they can get brawler-like amounts of defense going, but it takes a lot of stat points in cunning as well as valuable generics. An armor-based marauder can feel free to level str/dex/con the whole game with only a few cunning points or pieces of +cun equipment. That means they can dish out heavier damage earlier, don't have to rely on +def artifact drops, and use the really good late game heavy armors, like a berserker who just happens to headbutt people. But then you don't get to stab the mooks that miss you. And that's half the fun.
It also makes a difference for Total Thuggery and the stamina regen skills. Armored marauders won't invest in the locked Cunning/Techniques, so they have points to spare for stamina regen from Combat Veteran, then use Total Thuggery without the drain getting too bad. Defense ones probably can't afford the points, but stamina isn't an issue if you're not running Thuggery and have some points in Mobility.
Antimagic vs magic isn't so hard a choice. A good amount of the midgame daggers are arcane-based, (although surprisingly not the ludicrous projectile-destroying lua-erroring +20 dexterity one). Marauders won't be investing much in willpower, so the Antimagic tree is wasted. Fungus is still one of the best healing trees in the game though, so it's not a total loss. Just be prepared to cry when you have no generic points left.
Talents Overview
Marauders are constantly in need of talent points, generic and class, because they have so much stuff to work with. Even at L50 there's still going to be stuff that could stand to be pumped, so keep it in mind when dishing out mid-game class talent points.
Combat Techniques: Rush is a must, so if you want some range on it, add a few points. The two accuracy-boosting talents are largely unnecessary and not worth their cost in stamina, attack speed, and talent points. The speed boost at the end of the tree is excellent mid to late game, but before then it's probably not worth spending the 7 points to get there and pump it.
Combat Veteran: Ignore it completely if you're not going to run Total Thuggery. Maybe put a point or two in +HP +stamina regen early on, but you shouldn't generally be running out of stamina until later, and that's when the first and fourth stamina regen talents are handy. Still, it's a lot of point investment just for resource management.
Dual Weapons: Increasing your off-hand damage is always helpful, and +apr is useful for dagger-wielding flurriers especially because the armor reduction is a fixed amount off every valuable stab. The off-hand deflection on the second talent (Dual Weapon Defense) is so miserable it might as well be non-existent, so don't bother. And unless you like draining off all your stamina, Momentum probably isn't a good idea.
Dual Techniques: Everything here is useful, especially the early-game stun. The rule of thumb with Dual Techniques is that everything is worth a single point, but not worth dumping a whole lot on, especially when you're stretched so thin. Dual Strike might be worth it just to increase the stun duration, but everything else is just +damage, which you should have a ton of already.
Dirty Fighting: A stun! Or a free attack! Abuse it the whole game. Backstab is useful early on, but when late-game enemies and bosses have 100% stun resistance, it buys nothing, so pump it early or not at all. Cripple, however, is golden, because nothing resists it and it'll act like a high-damage 50% slow. 5/5 as soon as you have the cunning for it.
Poisons: It'll take a lot of points to make poisons useful, and some stat investment too because they run off cunning. It'd seem like a high cunning defense marauder would get some leverage out of this but... there's enough fun things to spend talent points on.
Bloodthirst: Amazing. Unlock it early and get 5/5 in at least the first two talents, Bloodbath because it solves all non-Thuggery stamina problems, and Mortal Terror for the crits. Bloodrage is questionable but maybe useful if you have infusions etc that scale on strength (and skullcracker scales on strength... hm). Unstoppable is a lifesaver, so it's worth at least a point, more if you want to be cautious.
Tactical: It's the brawler tree! Garbage unless you're running a defense-oriented build, but with 3-5 points in the first two talents (Counter Attack/Tactical Expert), you'll be murdering small monsters simply by standing next to them and getting some nifty free attacks on larger bosses as well. Defense marauders are just weirdly more effective when surrounded, what with all the rogue-y sweeps and bonus +50 defense and counterattacks. Set Up is dumb because you'll already have a ludicrous crit rate. And why even consider Exploit Weakness when Total Thuggery is available.
Battle Tactics: Greater weapon focus is awesome, especially when a marauder with 100 dex can expect a 60% activation rate on this talent late game. It's worth 5/5 eventually. Step Up is a good mobility option and you can basically choose between 5 points in it or the Steamroller prodigy. Hopefully you'll be killing things too quickly for Bleeding Edge to pay off, and not dying fast enough for True Grit to kick in.
Generic Talents
Field Control: Ignore it. Maybe a single point in Disengage at level 1, but seriously, you have so many ways to run away from things that this shouldn't be necessary. Track is worth picking up from an escort though.
Combat Training: Dagger mastery is an obvious choice along with Thick Skin. Max Armor Training if running an armor-based build. Maxing accuracy is generally not necessary with high-dexterity classes, but a point there once in a while.
Mobility: Keep the starting point in Hack-n-Back as a simple escape early game. Defense marauders will want to max Mobile Defense. Light of Foot is not at all helpful because it's eclipsed by the Combat Veteran stamina regeneration, and you won't be spending much of your combat time walking around. Strider can be useful just for a low rush cooldown, but is totally not worth the investment if you go with Steamroller as a prodigy.
Thuggery: The only unique tree a marauder gets, but man is it good. Skullcracker will always be helpful, but unless you find Garkul's helmet or something else with a ridiculous multiplier, it actually might be worth spending points elsewhere first, like on Riot-born and Vicious Strikes, because stun resist and +crit is super useful. Total Thuggery is a big choice, and very good if you have the stamina and stamina regen for it. If you're using it, it needs 5/5 or else a single flurry will knock you 60+ stamina at high fatigue. It also requires some investment in passive stamina regen talents and Bloodbath. It's totally possible to win without it, even if it is worth at least +25% damage on late-game bosses. If you find some good artifacts with +phys penetration mid to late game, it's probably worth skipping.
Conditioning: This is what you're pumping Constitution for. Vitality and Unflinching Resolve will take care of status conditions. Daunting Presence could be helpful if you're getting surrounded, but it's not such a great investment. At least 1 point in Adrenaline Surge can save your life if you run out of stamina in a pinch. Pop it, pop Unstoppable, flip the table on whatever was after you and murder everything.
Survival: Pick up what you need from escorts and save your generics for the better stuff.
Leveling/Strategy
Race notes: Cornacs are a good choice because marauders are always wanting for generics and an extra inscription slot early can carry you through the T1 dungeons. Thalore and Shalore both play out well late game (+resist all, or plus duration on Blinding Speed and GWF, both great but costly in talent points). Both undead make decent marauders with their +stat skills, even if generics will be thin and ghouls are sloooow. Highers and Yeeks don't get much synergy. In general, because marauders have so many places to spend points in, the faster leveling races are better early on.
An escape inscription is top priority. Disengage/Hack-n-Back are worthless against the real threats (mages will toast you from range, solipsists will brainfry you from range, etc). Movement infusions are on par with even a controlled phase door because you will be doing nothing from distance except closing that distance or running away as fast as possible. That means you should search Zigur/Angolwen/Last Hope and save up for one! Later on, a shield rune will probably be a good addition unless you'd prefer to ramp up HP regen (and maybe fungus) instead, meaning you'd rather regen/heal than prevent smaller amounts of damage.
You'll be playing like different classes at different points in the game. At the start, your damage will be meager but your defense will carry you, so kite things, stab things, and generally play rogue-y with opportunistic stuns and headbeatings. Concentrate on dexterity, spread points around pretty much all of the unlocked trees but Combat Veteran and Field Control. Unlock Bloodbath at level 10 and now you're a berserker. Rush things down, kill them, kill their friends. At this point the stuns and confusion and dagger on-hit effects will be locking down single targets pretty effectively, and your survivability goes way up once you pump constitution and grab the Conditioning talents. At level 20, you could either 1) grab an infusion slot and spend points on stamina regen and Total Thuggery, 2) grab battle tactics for GWF and 12-hit flurry things to death, or 3) grab poison/tactics and sink points into it. Defense marauders want cunning at this point, armored ones want strength. Once you have your first prodigy and enough points to get Cunning/Tactics or Total Thuggery running, the rest of the game is pretty variable and depends on def/armor build, but you'll be slaughtering stuff like a true marauder either way.
Prodigies
Marauders have a lot of good prodigies. Steamroller is a good choice because you'll be headsmacking things to death fast and it saves you from having to invest in Strider. That said, 4-5 points in Strider plus the Glory of the Pride artifact ring means a 6-7 turn Rush cooldown anyway. I Can Carry The World is always good. Giant Leap is actually a really fun mobility option, because it's an escape plus a big hit. The defensive ones aren't very helpful because Vitality, Unflinching Resolve and Riot-born should be keeping you safe already. One the dex side, WINDBLAAADE will kill everything in a ten mile radius and potentially hit (and crit) 4 times with GWF. Eye of the Tiger solves not-enough-buttons problems, but the other cunning talents aren't as useful.
So yeah, big post but marauders are great. Happy headbashing.
Ghoul Marauder Guide
Marauder: (I played as a ghoul, getting out of the starting dungeon on nightmare is hell and ridiculously difficult but once you do that it becomes a great class/race combo)
Stat points: con/dex spread with enough str to get armor.
Class points:
- 1) Get 1 point in pretty much everything (off weapon offense and defense, dual strike, rush, flurry, whirlwind, dirty fighting) as soon as it becomes available/possible. None of these need more than 1 point until much later.
- 2) Max the health regen skill in the combat veteran tree
- 3) Unlock bloodbath tree and go 5/5/1/5 in it.
- 4) Rest of class points don't really matter, just do your best to keep your health regen extremely high at all times
Generic points
- 1) Max Retch, abuse it
- 2) Max riot born (not sure of name, the one that gives stun/confusion resist) by level 20 or so.
- 3) You want to have 5/1/5/1 in the conditioning tree eventually.
